“Not until Tuesday,” he says.
“Damn.” I suddenly can’t imagine anything I want more in life than to see West howl at the full moon. “Well, thanks for sharing the weirdo misery. Glad to know I’m not alone.”
“I just told you multiple embarrassing things about my family. You owe me another one.”
I climb onto my bed and sit with my back against pillows while I motion for West to sit next to me. “Okay, here’s one. When I wanted a snack, I used to eat a piece of Wonder Bread slathered in margarine and white sugar.”
“Try harder. That shit was the fancy dessert in my house,” West says with a smile.
“I once opened my mom’s top dresser drawer—”
He holds up his hands. “I don’t think I want to know this—”
“—and it was filled with loose baby teeth. She admitted that whenever she played tooth fairy, she’d drop my and my brothers’ teeth in her drawer to save for later, but she never did anything with them. She doesn’t even know whose are whose.”
“That’s worse than I expected, and I expected parental sex toys.”
I lean across my twin bed and cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t say that ever again.”
His eyes spark, and then he licks my palm. I shriek and rub my hand against his chest while he laughs. “I can’t believe you just licked me.”
“I can’t believe you’re surprised. Didn’t you say you have brothers?”
“Two older ones. Who areniceto me, by the way. How many siblings do you have, and do you torture them regularly?”
He hesitates, like he’s not sure of the answer, but finally settles on “Four.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.” West ducks his head, letting his hair fall over his eyes again like he does when he’s uncomfortable. I didn’t realize I knew that about him until now. Just like that, an entire portion of my brain is suddenly devoted to learning the story behind that reluctantfour. I’ll die if I don’t find out. I’m going to dream and daydream and write stories in my head until he tells me. I’ve auto-deleted a mountain of info to make room for this clawing curiosity. The names and faces and histories of any guy I ever had a crush on, for instance. Gone in the bob of his Adam’s apple, erased in the slow dip of dark eyelashes against his cheeks.
West looks like he’s in agony. He hasn’t told me the story yet, but he will. I find the only ounce of patience I possess andchange the subject. “You’re a horrible distraction. I’m supposed to be doing math homework.”
His shoulders slump in relief, and when his eyes catch mine, I see the unspokenThank youin his rainbow irises. “Sorry, I’ll stop distracting you.”
“I don’t mind,” I say too quickly. “I can’t do my homework, anyway. I don’t understand it.”
“What are you learning?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’tknow?” He picks up my textbook and starts thumbing through the pages. “Where are your notes from class?”
“I don’t have any.”
A scrap of paper filled with hastily scrawled dialogue flutters to his lap. “I think I’ve found your problem.”
“Inspiration strikes when it strikes, West. It’s not my fault that my Greco-Roman-inspired fantasy with an emotions-based magic system and a bodyguard romance is more interesting than trigonometry.” Just like it’s not my fault that words stay put on the page, unlike numbers, which dance around whenever I look at them.
“You write during class?”
“I write during everything. I’m writing a kiss scene in my head right now.”
He chokes on his own breath. “The fuck?”
“What?” I look at his wide eyes and realize he thinks I want to kiss him. His teeth drag over his bottom lip, and it dawns on me that maybe I do. A flush of heat steals across my chest, and for a heartbeat, I’m trapped in his gaze. I clear my throat and tear my eyes away, looking anywhere but at him. I’m going to have to figure out what to do withthatthought sometime whenhe’s not sitting on my bed. “I’m always writing scenes in my head. You should see the Notes app on my phone,” I murmur.
He narrows his eyes like he’s not sure what to make of the invitation. After a beat, he continues to thumb through the pages of the textbook on his lap. “Why don’t you just drop the class?”
